Hello Railway Support Team,

I'm encountering two primary issues with deploying my Python/FastAPI application and would greatly appreciate your assistance.

Summary of Issues:

1. Docker Image Size Exceeds Limit: Recent deployments are failing due to the Docker image size reaching 7.5GB, which exceeds my plan's 4GB limit.

• My local project folder साइज is approximately 1GB.

• I've configured a .dockerignore file to exclude unnecessary files. (Can share .dockerignore content if needed).

• Build logs indicate Nixpacks is using the ghcr.io/railwayapp/nixpacks:ubuntu-1745885067 base image and running apt-get install -y ffmpeg followed by pip install -r requirements.txt. (Can share requirements.txt content if needed).

1. (Intermittent or Previous Issue) Nixpacks Checksum/Cache Related Error: Prior to the image size issue, or intermittently, I've also encountered Nixpacks build errors similar to this:

ERROR: failed to solve: failed to compute cache key: failed to calculate checksum of ref ... "/.nixpacks/nixpkgs-...nix": not found

Key Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

• Configured and attempted to optimize the backend/.dockerignore file.

• Attempted various methods for setting environment variables via both the Railway CLI and the web UI (Raw Editor).

• Set the NO_CACHE=1 environment variable in the service to disable build layer caching (however, the image size issue persists).

• Reviewed and adjusted environment variable loading logic in main.py.

• Removed unnecessary backup/temporary Python files from the project.

Specific Questions and Assistance Requested:

1. Regarding Image Size Issue:

• What is the approximate base size of the ghcr.io/railwayapp/nixpacks:ubuntu-1745885067 builder image?

• Considering my requirements.txt and the ffmpeg installation, is an image size of 7.5GBบน an Ubuntu base typical, or is there likely another factor молитва significantly to this size?

• Could you provide information on the main system packages (apt packages, etc.) that Nixpacks might be installing by default or based on my requirements.txt dependencies, apart from ffmpeg?

• Are there any other Nixpacks-level configurations or optimization strategies I can try to reduce the image size (e.g., options to select a lighter base image, exclude specific system packages)?

1. Regarding Nixpacks Checksum/Cache Error:

• What are the common causes and solutions for this type of error? Is there a definitive platform-level way to achieve the equivalent of "clear build cache and redeploy"?

My project's requirements.txt is as follows:

fastapi==0.104.1

pydantic==2.4.2

yt-dlp==2023.11.16

python-dotenv==1.0.0

google-cloud-texttospeech==2.16.2

google-auth==2.23.4

openai==1.2.4

requests==2.31.0

uvicorn==0.24.0

psycopg2-binary==2.9.9

Any advice or assistance you can provide to resolve these issues would be highly appreciated. I can provide any additional information needed (full build logs, file contents, etc.).

Thank you.